You know you’re an elite program when an SEC championship is viewed as not enough.
Even before the Dawgs lost their quarterfinal game against Notre Dame, there were some fans and observers downplaying the importance of conference championships in this age of an expanded College Football Playoff.
UGA’s Kirby Smart addressed that line of thinking after his Dawgs’ dramatic overtime win over Texas to claim the SEC title, noting that he’d seen less excitement surrounding the conference championship game.
But Smart wasn’t buying into the devaluation of conference championship games. “You play football to win your conference,” he said. “I’ve had years I won the SEC that I didn’t win the natty and then years I won the natty that I didn’t win the SEC.”
SEC championships, he stressed, are “really hard to come by … For people to devalue that over a playoff, I just don’t see it that way. I value SEC championships. I hold them in high esteem because the work it requires to do that is incredible.”
As it turned out, that hard-fought championship will be the only one his Dawgs will win this season. And, so, some folks see this as a “down” year.
I guess that says something about the elevated atmosphere in which the Bulldogs are operating after winning back-to-back national championships in 2021-2022. But as my buddy Scott Peacocke said after the loss to the Irish, “this team was too flawed to win it all.”
A different way of looking at it was expressed by Joel Provano, another longtime friend with whom Scott and I text regularly during Georgia football games. Noted Joel after the Irish prevailed 23-10 in the Sugar Bowl: “I will say, after back-to-back natties, my frustration level isn’t as high when we lose.”
Disappointment over not winning another national championship aside, the 2024 team still accomplished a lot, despite playing the nation’s toughest schedule. The Dawgs faltered twice on the road during the regular season, against Alabama and Ole Miss, but still managed to win the SEC. And for those who like to keep track of rivalries, among Georgia’s 11 wins were victories over traditional rivals Tennessee, Clemson, Florida, Georgia Tech and Auburn, plus two victories over playoff semifinalist (and apparent new rival) Texas (including once in Austin).
I would say this season was more a success than not. The Dawgs won the SEC despite having a schedule that was wildly out of whack with nearly every other team in conference, especially coddled newcomer Texas.
And Georgia made the first ever 12-team playoff. Several other SEC teams (including the two that beat the Dawgs during the regular season) wish they could say the same.
No, the 2025 season didn’t turn out quite the way Bulldog Nation had hoped, but it’s not like Smart’s program is on the precipice of becoming irrelevant.
Besides winning the SEC for the second time in three years, the Bulldogs won double-digit games for the seventh time in Smart’s nine seasons as head coach, and this also was Georgia’s fourth College Football Playoff appearance in the Smart era.
And to put it in business terms — and college football is, more than ever, very big business these days — the brand never has been stronger: UGA finished the regular season ranked by Nielsen as the most-watched team of the 2024 regular season, drawing an average total television viewership of 8.6 million per game, topping Ohio State, Bama, Texas, Tennessee and Michigan.
The Dawgs’ game against Alabama in Week 5 was watched by 12 million people, Nielsen said, and 13 million tuned in to watch the Dawgs top SEC newcomer Texas in Austin in Week 8. The latter was the most-watched game of the regular season.
No doubt, part of the appeal for TV viewers was that this Georgia team never gave up. Perhaps because it was not as talented as its immediate predecessors (who sent a load of players to the NFL), the 2024 team tended to start slowly.
The Sugar Bowl was the seventh time this season that Georgia trailed at halftime, but the Bulldogs rallied to win four of those games. And against Bama, they very nearly made it five comeback wins.
Besides a brutal schedule and the continual talent drain to the pros (not to mention lots of talented bench players entering the transfer portal in search of more playing time or NIL money), Georgia faced a lot more injuries to key players this season.
Smart said it was “easily the toughest year” of his tenure in Athens, which says a lot.
That comment came in his press conference after the playoff loss to Notre Dame, which saw the Dawgs play a very sloppy game, with quite a few missed tackles (a problem all season). I agree with Blawg reader Daryl Matthews, who said “UGA shoulda/coulda/woulda won that game comfortably, but mistake after mistake did them in.”
On an error-free night, I think the Dawgs would have taken the Irish to the woodshed.
Unfortunately, as I noted in my earlier Blawg about the Sugar Bowl, the second-seeded Dawgs’ offensive line played an extremely poor game in New Orleans, meaning there wasn’t much of a rushing attack and new starting QB Gunner Stockton (replacing the injured Carson Beck) was under constant pressure. That resulted in a blindside strip-sack fumble that ultimately gave seventh-seeded Notre Dame its only offensive touchdown of the game.
Sloppy or uninspired play quite often is blamed on poor coaching, and that’s how UGA legend Kevin Butler saw it in the post-game call-in show on the Bulldogs radio network, when he fretted that “rookie mistakes from veteran players show a lack of on-field discipline.” Along with the lack of development on the OL this season, Butler said, “that’s on [the] coaches.”
As for the Georgia defense, it had its lapses, but generally played well enough to win against the Irish. However, the Dawgs’ offense ran out of steam on too many drives: UGA was just 2-of-12 on third-down conversion tries and 0-for-3 on fourth down attempts.
It’s also worth mentioning that, while Dawgs fans can’t really blame this loss on the awful officiating crew from Big 12 Conference that called the game, the officials’ inconsistency was maddening, and they did make one major call that took the wind out of Georgia’s sails on a key second-quarter drive.
Speedster Arian Smith caught a beautiful 67-yard pass from Stockton, but one of the officials trailing the play threw a flag because a UGA player not dressed out for the game made slight contact him as he ran down the white strip along the sideline. Usually, Smart said after the game, they just give you a warning for such an infringement, but the Dawgs were levied a 15-yard penalty that gave them 1st-and-25 at the Notre Dame 26-yard line, instead of a 1st-and-10 at the 11. Georgia ended up only getting a field goal.
Additionally aggravating was the overall inconsistent performance by the crew officiating the game. They threw a flag for sideline interference but left an obvious roughing-the-passer situation uncalled and twice levied only 5-yard penalties for a Notre Dame player running into Georgia freshman punter Drew Miller, rather than the 15-yard roughing-the-kicker penalty that would have given the Dawgs first downs in those situations. The Irish player hit the punter’s extended leg at full speed, which obviously should be roughing the kicker.
But that’s the sort of day it was for UGA.
So, where does Georgia go from here?
In the era of name-image-and-likeness deals and the transfer portal, Smart will have to be nimble to keep his roster and his coaching staff stocked with the personnel needed for taking on rough schedules in the nation’s toughest conference.
While Stockton, who had a solid outing against the Irish, would appear to be the leading candidate for next year’s starting QB job (with Beck off to the NFL), the depth chart behind him may be fluid, and a running back corps hampered by injuries this year also could use some bolstering. Losses to the draft and graduation on the defensive front and OL are a bit scary, too, so Georgia needs to be more competitive in the portal this offseason.
And while next year’s schedule has fewer road tests, it actually might be harder than this year’s. The Dawgs again face Texas, Bama and Ole Miss, then play at Tennessee and at Auburn, which has gone big in portal. And Florida looks totally rejuvenated, plus Tech is on the rise.
Even more importantly, no matter who leaves or stays, Smart needs to do something about the underperforming offensive line and a woeful receiving corps that led the country in dropped balls this season.
Of course, in the wake of the Dawgs losing their playoff game, it wasn’t hard to predict the kneejerk reaction of many Georgia fans. There are some folks who, if you shook them in the middle of the night, would awaken shouting “Fire Mike Bobo!”
But I’m not convinced Bobo, as offensive coordinator, is the problem. Even the now-sainted Todd Monken had his off games, and I’ve seen Bobo call some great games offensively, including some of the time this season (despite the fact that he was dealing with a drop in talent, an offensive line that easily was overwhelmed and the lack of a consistent rushing attack much of the time).
I will concede, though, that at times Bobo is a bit too quick to abandon the run, and at other times (including in Thursday’s game) he tries to get too cute, rather than going with what works. In the Sugar Bowl game, Bobo’s playcalling sometimes drifted a bit out of balance. Georgia’s best drive involved some good runs up the middle mixed with passes, but he went bit pass-heavy after that. Part of the problem was the OL wasn’t doing a good job of either run-blocking or pass protecting.
I’m not privy to what goes on in terms of game prep, and I don’t like to advocate anyone losing their job, but I have to say that offensive line coach Stacy Searels’ unit has underperformed the past two years. And as Blawg reader Jim McLaughlin put it: “Games are won or lost in the trenches.”
Another factor this season was the dropped passes. While Georgia still ended up scoring on one drive (thanks to a 32-yard throw Stockton made to running back Cash Jones), receiver Dillon Bell had a particularly ugly drop earlier in that series, and he was wide open. Unfortunately, that was in keeping with how the receiving corps played all too frequently this season. Said Butler on the post-game call-in show: “I wouldn’t let some of these receivers hold my newborn baby; they will drop it.”
Part of the blame has to fall on the players themselves, but as wide receivers coach, James Coley hasn’t been a great recruiter of top talent, and he gets a big red F for his unit’s fundamentals this season. I mean, at that position, catching the damn ball is Job One. I hope Smart takes a hard look at how that unit has been run.
As for talent at the receiver position, I agree with what my great-nephew Gabe Rudd said: “I think we need to hit [the portal] hard on receivers … just bring in some guys with speed and good hands.”
Reader McLaughlin is one of those fans who thinks that, despite Georgia’s remarkable success in recent years, change is in order. “Without some changes,” he said, “the Smart era might well go the Richt route, which, as you know, went from great to just OK.”
This season, McLaughlin pointed out, “our performances in the Bama, Ole Miss, Massachusetts, Tech and Notre Dame games was not good. Poor tackling, foolish penalties, dropped passes and poor playcalling were present in all those games.”
Still, as my friend Joel noted, “we averaged 31 points per game and, even if you throw out the cupcake games, we were at 26 against a brutal schedule, so I don’t think we need a complete overhaul. Whether we need coaching changes is beyond my pay grade, but I’m sure Kirby will make the right calls.”
Longtime Blawg reader Mark Symms agrees, and he takes a different view from the many fans who expected another natty this year.
He believes Georgia “overachieved this year by winning the SEC. I said before the season I would be happy with the team in the SEC Championship game. We lost too much firepower at tight end, wide receiver and running back. It showed early and ugly. And we still were able to struggle through games and win the SEC Championship.”
But Symms does agree that “we have got to increase our firepower at wide receiver this offseason.”
And he thinks “the offensive line needs to be rebuilt. Gunner will be a fine quarterback with a good line. I have no issues with him going forward.”
Summed up Symms: “A kick-butt offense and a Kirby Smart defense can win another natty. And I can’t think of a better coach that I would want for my beloved Dawgs.”
I can’t, either.
In the new era of an expanded playoff and the portal/NIL, it’s going to be more of a roller coaster for everyone. Look at Ohio State, which was down in the dumps after losing to Michigan and now is the betting favorite to be national champ — all within a month. Looking ahead, I expect that some years the Dawgs will get hot and make a run, and in others they will be banged up, get a tough draw and not make it as far.
But the program still is in great shape, and will continue to be so as long as Smart is the coach.
A TRAGIC ENDING TO A BAD WEEK
Bulldog Nation was saddened this weekend with the news that Sonny Smart, father of Georgia’s head football coach, died early Saturday, after fracturing his hip on New Year’s Eve in New Orleans and then suffering complications from surgery.
Said a UGA press release: “The Smart family treasures everyone’s thoughts and prayers and now prays for God’s comfort, strength and guidance.”
My sincerest condolences to Coach Smart and the entire Smart family.
